Maria Caulfield’s ‘baseless claims’ about abortion are concerning

In an interview with The House magazine last week, the new Conservative Vice-Chair for Women, Maria Caulfield MP called for a Parliamentary debate on reducing the 24-week time limits for abortions and criticised moves to decriminalise abortion and repeal the century-old laws which still treat abortion as a criminal act.

As the MP who moved the Bill to decriminalise abortion in March last year, I want to set the record straight and correct some misplaced concerns in her article. The decriminalisation of abortion would not have anything like the impact which she states, and the claims she makes on late-stage abortions up to 24 weeks do not match with the scientific evidence.